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Author Topic: Starsector 0.65.2a (Released) Patch Notes  (Read 325237 times)

Schwartz

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Re: Starsector 0.65.2a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #75 on: December 05, 2014, 01:25:49 PM »

Timers for destroyers and cruisers per se aren't a bad thing, but the overall supply cost for battles needs to remain reasonable. Fights are already very expensive, damaged ships prohibitively so, and I'd rather keep playing fleet battles instead of being forced into a cheap & lowball kind of scenario just to make a buck. I have a hunch this'll make Hardened Subsystems mandatory because it translates into money saved.
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Wyvern

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Re: Starsector 0.65.2a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #76 on: December 05, 2014, 01:27:28 PM »

Ships I would suggest not get CR timers: Dominator cruiser, Hammerhead destroyer.  These are both kindof the low end of their classes, and both feel like scaled-up variations of the Brawler frigate.  No CR timer would also give me a reason to consider using these ships that, otherwise, I really wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole.
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CopperCoyote

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Re: Starsector 0.65.2a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #77 on: December 05, 2014, 01:32:51 PM »

I wanted everything to have CR timers when it was first announced so i'm quite pleased with destroyers and cruisers getting them. Having capitals as the masters of the battlefield with no CR timers does make sense though. My Biggest concern with everything having differing cr timers  means all of my limited command points are likely going to be used up telling ships to retreat in waves. In .65.1 and .62.x I'd only use one to tell my frigates to retreat.

Would a button in the tactical overlay to retreat ships losing CR be too powerful? What if it was ships at risk of malfunctions?
Either one would assuage my fears of having to spend most or all of my resources just keeping my ships alive.

I really like that ballistic weapons don't have ammo. It makes choosing ships and weapons less complicated. It also makes the thumper an almost useable weapon. Its biggest limiting factor was ammo so now it's merely too op costly of its DPS
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DatonKallandor

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Re: Starsector 0.65.2a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #78 on: December 05, 2014, 01:33:32 PM »

Timers for destroyers and cruisers per se aren't a bad thing, but the overall supply cost for battles needs to remain reasonable. Fights are already very expensive, damaged ships prohibitively so, and I'd rather keep playing fleet battles instead of being forced into a cheap & lowball kind of scenario just to make a buck. I have a hunch this'll make Hardened Subsystems mandatory because it translates into money saved.

This is really a problem with CR recovery being extremely expensive in terms of supplies consumed  (especially when it's bonus CR beyond the standard 50%). That's an issue with every ship deployed, not just the ones that can run out of combat time and deplete extra CR - although as long as it remains a problem it can be countered by finishing the fight fast and/or retreating low combat timer ships. I'd rather see the supply cost (mostly?) shifted from CR recovery to repairs (which rewards you for better use of your ships instead of unilaterally punishing you for using them at all) but that's just me.

Now we got CR timer for all kinds of ships and only 3 orders per battle to order zero CR ships to retreat. How about ships with CR 0 automatically try to disengage and exit the battlefield? Also with CR for heavy ships AI ships CR can be easily drained down by some specially created fast cruiser with heavy PD. CR will hurt AI side more every time as AI prefers to stay away from battle being too careful. You can set battle timer at 5 or 10 minutes based on fleet size instead of CR with same result to prevent AI fleet kiting with solo ship. CR instigates fast battles with AI not willing to fight and running away if possible.

Standing Orders is hopefully something that's coming with the Officer system (or just a part of certain Officers - cautious officers retreat a low CR, etc). Being able to set over-all guidelines (retreat at x% CR? Use Strike Ordnance on Ships above size X if they are present in the battle? etc.) for your fleet is going to be needed eventually (and again a great place for skills to make a difference - unlocking new standing orders).
« Last Edit: December 05, 2014, 01:36:22 PM by DatonKallandor »
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Megas

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Re: Starsector 0.65.2a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #79 on: December 05, 2014, 01:37:07 PM »

Quote
The only thing I can suggest is maybe make timer for ships that are fast and can kite, but for others please remove the timer, so I can at least play with some ships. So maybe a special mod for fast/high tech ship to have a timer, while others dont have it.
Unfortunately, many player-controlled flagships can be made to kite most ships in the game.  Gunnery Implants 5 perk greatly enables this.  Pile on Helmsmanship 10, and hullmods Augmented Engines and ITU, and many ships can outspeed and outrange most ships.  This is why I beeline for Technology 7 then Combat 10 in every game I play so far.  Also, the fast high-tech ships that cannot kite (e.g., blaster Tempest or blaster Medusa) are agile enough to dodge incoming shots as necessary (or take hits on shield), pop off a few shots of their own, withdrawn, vent, and repeat.

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I have a hunch this'll make Hardened Subsystems mandatory because it translates into money saved.
Hardened Subsystems is a no-brainer for my high-tech ships once I get the Optimized Assembly perk.  I use it on every high-tech (Wolf, Tempest, Hyperion, Afflictor, and Shade).  It is that good, up there with Augmented Engines and ITU.  So far, I do not use it with other frigates because they run out of ammo first, and Lasher desperately needs Extended Shields.

Quote
Ships I would suggest not get CR timers: Dominator cruiser, Hammerhead destroyer.  These are both kindof the low end of their classes, and both feel like scaled-up variations of the Brawler frigate.  No CR timer would also give me a reason to consider using these ships that, otherwise, I really wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole.
Dominator is very strong.  Hammerhead is weak, but it does not need much to be up to par with others, just a few more OP, flux capacity, and/or burn 5 will make it good.

Quote
I really like that ballistic weapons don't have ammo. It makes choosing ships and weapons less complicated. It also makes the thumper an almost useable weapon. Its biggest limiting factor was ammo so now it's merely too op costly of its DPS
Thumper is sub-par, but would be usable if ammo was not so low.  With unlimited ammo, it (and HMG and Gauss Cannon) will be viable.
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miljan

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Re: Starsector 0.65.2a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #80 on: December 05, 2014, 01:47:09 PM »

Quote
The only thing I can suggest is maybe make timer for ships that are fast and can kite, but for others please remove the timer, so I can at least play with some ships. So maybe a special mod for fast/high tech ship to have a timer, while others dont have it.
Unfortunately, many player-controlled flagships can be made to kite most ships in the game.  Gunnery Implants 5 perk greatly enables this.  Pile on Helmsmanship 10, and hullmods Augmented Engines and ITU, and many ships can outspeed and outrange most ships.  This is why I beeline for Technology 7 then Combat 10 in every game I play so far.  Also, the fast high-tech ships that cannot kite (e.g., blaster Tempest or blaster Medusa) are agile enough to dodge incoming shots as necessary (or take hits on shield), pop off a few shots of their own, withdrawn, vent, and repeat.
Than maybe a option/difficulty that will have timers (like hardcore dif will have timers in battles, while other will not).
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Alex

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Re: Starsector 0.65.2a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #81 on: December 05, 2014, 02:15:37 PM »

Spoiler
After cooling down from my initial reaction, I'll try to explain why I'm surprised by this changes:
If anything I'd expected quite the opposite! It flatten the differences between ships and weapons slots making choices now more cosmetics rather than tactical.
Most of the weapons changes are "to remove useless mechanics". Well in my opinion they were not useless, just under-exploited.

   You say the ammo limitation was not useful in most case, well that is true in the current vanilla balance. But what if suddenly we get to choose between a Hellbore with 50 ammo and less flux, or a Hephaistos with 1000 and highter flux? Suddenly one is the perfect short battle weapon, but quickly become useless in long engagement. There is now an interesting choice to make. In mods we could try even more radical changes that might not be fit for vanilla, like extreme range weapon extremely ammo limited that are only useful to apply pressure on a single ship and have to retreat afterward. To me unlimited ammo could only make sense for PD weapons.
   With unlimited ammo, I don't see the point to buy high tech ships except maybe a frigate for player use, because low tech ships cost less, are more sturdy and can't run dry anymore. (yeah I'm over dramatizing but still...)

   The beam range makes sense, they clearly needed an edge and a long range is definitively a strong one! (though now, you incentive players to get back to the "kite-for-hours-in-a-frigate" type of gameplay, switching ships when the CR counter run out) But then there is the removal of the flux boost, making them act closer to the ballistic. I agree with the fact that the bonus wasn't obvious enough to make a noticeable difference, but then why not push thing further instead of cutting it down? Like 25% damage at high flux, and 25%+ damage when the shields are not raised? (because of some sort of "energy interference" caused by the shield generator or some technobable) Suddenly, forcing a high-tech ship at high flux to drop it's shield makes it a much more dangerous enemy, even if it takes a beating doing so. It would help high-tech to clear some space before venting when now they are basically screwed if they have to drop shield.

 Then there is the missile regen that really don't click for me. Missiles are already much more powerful now, but they get another boost? And one that take the opposite direction as how missile works in the game, in most other games and in reality (not in the "realism" sense, but in the sense you expect them to work). Except for the Pillum, missiles were like a poker game where you could count how many the enemy had left, and act accordingly. But now when you manage to run a Buffalo dry and vent before going in for the kill, suddenly it fire 4 missiles from his sleeve! And it's not cheating! If the goal was mainly to boost the Salamanders, why not make them a MIRV instead? And even better, the sub-missiles could spread and target random weapons in addition to the engines, meaning unless you have a bubble shield you will suffer some hits and get some weapons or engines disabled. If the regen is to stay, maybe consider reactivating the "CR cost per missile fired" in the settings?

 And now almost all ships got CR timer. Okay fair enough, that's the new "ammo" mechanic replacement I suppose. But with so few battles lasting more than 5 minutes, I expect it will have exactly the same impact than ballistic ammo before: none except in a few cases. I'm very much in favor to limiting the deployment time, and CR is a great mechanic to do so, but the flat cost+timer implementation don't convince me yet. (why a ship deployed in pursuit a one tanker should loose 25% of CR after shooting only 2 missiles???) Instead, I would rather have all ships loosing CR as soon as they see an enemy, and only have different CR loss speed. That way it would make sense to take some risks to finish a battle more quickly, instead of taking the safe approach because you already "payed" for it the moment you deployed the ships. Deploying an overwhelming fleet would still cost a lot more than just what's necessary, and if needed maybe only add a minimum of 5% CR spent if the ship is deployed?

There are my thoughts, I feel like it's a lot of trimming the differences when I would have loved to see more of them. I'd be happy to be proven wrong though, and will try to test the future update with an open mind.

[PS] Okay I also don't like the changes because the ammo and missile regen was a huge balance factor in half of Scy weapons, now I have to find something else
[close]

I see what you're saying. The way I see what you're suggesting, though, is doubling down on mechanics that have some fundamental issues. Those would be major, AI-breaking changes, too, where these smooth out some AI issues instead.

As far as Salamanders specifically, my issue w/ them is they encourage a "boring" period of missile-baiting, and they're susceptible to it due to being medium-range support, so it's not something that can be resolved with AI or by making individual shots more powerful. Unlike a Sabot, for example, which is a short-range missile and the AI can make a decent evaluation about when to fire so that baiting it requires at least taking a significant risk by the baiting ship.


My concern is, I hope that the game will have some way of communicating how the missile ammo works in the refitting dialog. People who don't read the forums also need to know ahead of time how it works.

That's all in the weapon tooltip.

Also the way CR peak performance is going to increment or not increment based on the relative size, and the visibility radius and so on... it's very complicated and again, I hope the game can find some way to inform players of this ahead of time.

Yeah, that's a concern.


In this new version you could put an option to download from 64-bit to avoid those errors that have been reported in other posts in relation to saved games.

The need for that should be greatly reduced by the save file optimizations.



CR changes... not so keen on this; I've eschewed frigates since the CR timers went in in the first place, since my preferred play style is to pilot a single ship.  Can we get at least a few specific vessels that - like the Brawler - don't have CR timers?  Will wait to see how it plays out, but right now not a fan; yeah, I can swap to flying a Conquest or Onslaught or Paragon, but I'd like to have a few more options than just those three.
So now almost all ships will have a time limit in the game? The reason I am trying as fast as possible move from frigates to something else  is because there is a timer.
This is really a big thing for me, when playing games. I am not interested in playing and fighting under time pressure. From this changes it looks like I will be forced to play under it for 75% of the game and even more until i get to battlecruisers now. This is a huge game breaker for me, and I hope you will change it until the game is released. The moment you start to balance the game around exploits and in that process remove the fun from people that dont abuse the exploits, you should stop for a sec and rethink it.

The only thing I can suggest is maybe make timer for ships that are fast and can kite, but for others please remove the timer, so I can at least play with some ships. So maybe a special mod for fast/high tech ship to have a timer, while others dont have it.

I am sorry that I sound this negative, but this is really a huge deal for me.

I get what you're saying. Unfortunately, I don't have a good answer for you. Personally, I see the time pressure as a positive thing for gameplay, though I feel like I can relate to your guys' mindset. All I can say is wait and see how big of a deal it actually is. With the length of the timer and the rules around when it actually ticks down (and possible with hardened subsystems), I think it's pretty likely that your playstyles won't be affected in practical terms.


I agree that the loss of ammunition from ballistic weapons is a big thematic hit - and also agree that they need to have ammunition that's not a long-term limit.  Short term, however... I'd like to see ballistic weapons that have limited ammunition and ammunition regeneration, with the expanded magazines hull mod increasing both capacity and regen - some of the smaller ballistic weapons (and especially point defense weapons) with the hull mod should just never run out of ammunition, while weapons that are currently very ammo-limited (gauss cannon, for example) would still be able to run short for a bit in heavy combat.

I'd also like to see reloading for ballistics happening in chunks - this isn't the "clip reload" mechanic you (rightly) disapprove of, just a cosmetic thing: instead of regenerating one shot every second (for example), have it regenerate 10 shots all at once every 10 seconds - especially important for theme if you have, say, a light machine gun that (with the expanded magazines mod) literally can't run out of ammo; you'd see ammo decreasing until it hit its reload time and then jump back to full.
The loss of the flux boost is worrying because energy weapons won't have any mechanical differentiation other than the fact that they do energy damage.  "Fixing" this by giving ballistic weapons magazines, reload timers, CR loss, or whatever is not correct; that would make ballistic weapons more mechanically complicated/significant than energy weapons as a whole.  If you want to do a mechanical parity sort of thing, try having most ballistic weapons fire more quickly at the start and then slow down with sustained fire (this would decay in the same manner as reload).  The opposite would apply to energy weapons; they would speed up with continuous fire.

If you decide that weapons should cause CR loss, it should make the CR timer tick down faster (rather than implementing some phantom CR loss thing).

This is really interesting. I'm liking the "reload in chunks" idea, if mainly for feel reasons, though it *is* an extra weapon stat.

Now, increasing/decreasing the rate of fire based on how long a weapon has been firing... hmm. Increasing the RoF seems potentially troublesome as it might encourage firing at nothing to build up the bonus. On the other hand, reducing the rate of fire for ballistics is an interesting idea, although thinking about it, it's overlapping with the "accuracy reduction for sustained fire" mechanic.
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miljan

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Re: Starsector 0.65.2a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #82 on: December 05, 2014, 02:28:49 PM »

I get what you're saying. Unfortunately, I don't have a good answer for you. Personally, I see the time pressure as a positive thing for gameplay, though I feel like I can relate to your guys' mindset. All I can say is wait and see how big of a deal it actually is. With the length of the timer and the rules around when it actually ticks down (and possible with hardened subsystems), I think it's pretty likely that your playstyles won't be affected in practical terms.


What about hull mod (something like hardened subsystems), or a skill that will lower the ship speed for 50% (or some other number) but remove the timer? Or a difficulty/in game option?

And question for moders how easy/hard is it to remove the timers from the game if possible at all?

I dont want to feel sorry for buying this game, that will in end turn out to be time based.
« Last Edit: December 05, 2014, 02:31:23 PM by miljan »
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Alex

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Re: Starsector 0.65.2a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #83 on: December 05, 2014, 02:34:17 PM »

I can't really see doing that. It'd either be so bad that it's crippling, or it'd produce the same kiting scenarios and would be mandatory for someone trying to play optimally, thus narrowing their choices.

As for an option, I don't think adding options for core gameplay features is a good idea. It's kind of the game's responsibility to come up with a coherent ruleset, even if that ruleset isn't going to please everybody.

And question for moders how easy/hard is it to remove the timers from the game if possible at all?

Trivial, just removing some values in a column in ship_data.csv.
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Megas

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Re: Starsector 0.65.2a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #84 on: December 05, 2014, 02:35:48 PM »

Quote
What about hull mod (something like hardened subsystems), or a skill that will lower the ship speed for 50% (or some other number) but remove the timer? Or a difficulty/in game option?
Would make teleporters (only Hyperion in standard) overpowered.  Hyperion cannot solo the largest of fleets (though it comes close) due to CR decay.  Might make a few other ships that are extremely fast otherwise overpowered too.
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Alex

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Re: Starsector 0.65.2a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #85 on: December 05, 2014, 02:36:07 PM »

@Tartiflette: Forgot to mention, all the weapon changes are through weapon_data.csv, so it's not as if ballistic weapons *can't* have ammo anymore. So your mod(s) can still do whatever they want in regard to that, and it *doesn't* go against vanilla sensibilities to have low ammo for a weapon where it matters.
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xenoargh

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Re: Starsector 0.65.2a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #86 on: December 05, 2014, 02:48:12 PM »

Quote
That was already addressed here, maybe you missed it...
A fix like that, where the CR doesn't degrade unless X points are on the board, might work, but:

1.  I think there would still be good ways to game it and I think that it shouldn't be game-able, period.
2.  I think there'd be complaints in terms of feel and setting; "what, my ship just magically starts malfunctioning if there are lots of enemy ships on the battlefield, a million miles away, but doesn't, if they have only a few small ships left, but does, if I'm in a small ship"? 

It's one of those things that's a lot more complicated in operation than it sounds in practice, which is why instead I suggested that the player be forced to deploy a certain number of ships, period (and probably not be able to Retreat / Reinforce for a couple of minutes or so). 

That fixes the core problem, where players are being pushed to deploy as few ships as possible, which severely detracts from the feel.  I don't mind that that is a viable strategy, but when it's the only way to play, especially at the high end, I'm not sure that's a good thing, tbh :)
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Megas

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Re: Starsector 0.65.2a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #87 on: December 05, 2014, 03:03:33 PM »

At least for me, there are two optimal big fleet styles:
* So many warships that you can deploy everything, kill all enemies as quickly as possible, and recover most CR back.
* Most ships are Atlas or Prometheus, carrying lots of commodities, which are led by one overpowered flagship.  Deploy only the flagship, and it will be enough.

Early Combat and Technology characters use the second style, without the civilians.
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Megas

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Re: Starsector 0.65.2a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #88 on: December 05, 2014, 03:26:59 PM »

Quote
It's one of those things that's a lot more complicated in operation than it sounds in practice, which is why instead I suggested that the player be forced to deploy a certain number of ships, period (and probably not be able to Retreat / Reinforce for a couple of minutes or so).
I would get around this by using a fleet of one, forgoing extra ships and loot, if bounties are generous enough.  Also, an arena trap would be bad for accidental pursuit (where attacking player wants to retreat to avoid relations drop to vengeful).
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Megas

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Re: Starsector 0.65.2a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #89 on: December 05, 2014, 03:36:00 PM »

I just remembered something:  Weren't frigates' top speed and recovery boosted from 0.54 to 0.6 because they were the only ships with CR decay at the time (when 0.6 came out)?  One reason I use frigates, aside from high burn speed, is they recover quickly.  Big ships (and fighters) take forever to recover CR.
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